Happy Halloween! Less than 1 Week on the IGMC!

There once was a young RPG Maker, who eyed a great prize. The IGMC had come, and he knew he could win. Thousands of dollars were his for the taking.

He followed the guides, cheered on his competitors (but not TOO much), and worked on his game. Things went on like this, day to day, and then he looked up and saw the scariest thing!

There was less than a week to go in the IGMC and he was only halfway done!

That’s right my friends, it is CRUNCH TIME!

Some of you may be at different points in your development than others, but from my own experience, I imagine most of you feel very very behind. This week should be a combination of 4 things in my opinion:.

Step 1: Figure out what needs to be cut.

Unfortunately, some of your initial plan might just not fit into the time you have left to create. Go through your plan. Start making slashes through anything that isn’t necessary. Yes, some of this will feel like cutting limbs off, but if you want to finish in time for the contest, it will really have to be done. You can always add some stuff back later for a new non-contest version.

Step 2: Finish what has to be done.

Once you’ve figured out what can be cut, double down on finishing the things that are NECESSARY. Make sure you really need everything you are doing. Because you really don’t have much time left for making content, and that is because you really need time for the next two steps:

Step 3: Playtesting

You need to playtest your game. You need to get others to playtest your game. To do this, it needs to be in a fairly finished state, and so you need several days MINIMUM to do this. You may have to do with less, but you’ll treasure every bit of time you can spend in playtesting. Especially blind playtesting with people who didn’t make the game. They’ll see things you didn’t see and give a good idea of how difficult your game truly is. This is because they don’t know the right things to do like you do.

Step 4: Bug Squashing

It is time to stomp on every bug you and your playtesters can find. Kill those things good. Nothing will sour someone on a game quite like a game-ending bug. Even if it doesn’t occur except under specific weird circumstances if those circumstances happen to a judge and they haven’t saved… Yeah, you get the idea. The more severe the effect, the higher you should prioritize the bug. I imagine there will be very few bug-free games in the contest, but you need it as bug-free as possible.

Good luck with crunch time everyone! And I know I can’t expect you all to sleep enough during crunch time, but at least try to eat well. If you have to, get a friend to help you out with food! Though I suggest if you can convince them to come cook for you, you should probably put them in your credits.